Steve,
I suppose you would have had to have played Guild acoustics for 30 or 40 years to understand fully what Smith is talking about.
He and I are not only accustomed to the craftsmanship that went into Westerly made Guilds, but the sound. To be the die-hard Guild acoustic fans that we are, and then have production moved to China by Fender was just unbelievable. The move was soley motivated by greed on the part of Fender management. I'm no economist, but I can tell you that Fender moved production to China because they could be built very, very cheaply there, thus increasing profit to Fender. Unfortunately, the finished product sort of looked like a Guild, but wasn't in the same ballpark in terms of acoustics and quality. Then, to only make a bad situation worse in my eyes, NEVER have I seen on any website, magazine or catalog, Fender state that GADs are built in China. A little misleading in my view.
I have known a few people who have attempted to have Fender do warrenty work on old Guilds, and from what I understand, it's like pulling teeth. I never had to send a guitar to Westerly, but something tells me they would have not only repaired my guitar, but paid shipping and probably followed up on the repair.
It's just a little disconcerting to us that a company would purchase an American icon like Guild and not only ruin it, but not seem to care. I for one can't understand why Fender bought Guild. Was it to finally carry an acoustic line that was reputable? If so, what happened? If not, was it to see to it that Guild would no longer be a competitor? Fender has never built an acoustic that could compete!
These are the reasons that I get emotional about the subject and I suspect Smith and many other Guild enthusiasts feel this way.
West